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Before they could get to him, a big shadow grey rune (that had yellow writings all around it) appeared behind him, spinning slowly while shimmering, “I like two against one. Let’s see how potent you are,” he let out raucous mirth, vanishing and materialising behind the female that had pitched the ice chains at him.
“Take this!” he launched golden spheres of dark magic at her swiftly, giving her no time to attempt eluding. The attacks passed through her as her body became translucent, stunning him. These golden spheres, though not as deadly as that of the dark mist, could make one almost dead, but they actually did zero damage to her!
He peeked at the tribrid once more and saw her body was glowing more than before- a confirmation that the two were related.
“Old guy, look this way,” Cephina blurted out as she commenced casting a sequence of fire spheres at him. Now it was the man’s turn to dodge all her attacks, as well as that of the bothersome daggers launched by Phoenix.
He harrumphed and another much bigger rune appeared behind the first rune- one of a slate grey colour that had several symbols in a red colour, glowing brighter than the first rune and rotating much faster.
As he pressed his palms together, eyes shut, the runes separated from each other, the first one facing Phoenix and the other, Cephina.
Phoenix disappeared from his spot and when he materialised behind the man, three distinct runes were behind him. The first one was black with eburnean ancient writings, the second was smaragdine with golden symbols and the third was of a greige colour with violet writings around it.
Without any utterance, he pressed both palms together, eyes shut.
A second after, under his lower eyelids, four circular purple marks appeared on each, and a red moon mark appeared on his forehead, resulting in the fourth rune- a larger circular golden one that was above him with silver writings and symbols, glowing brighter than the other three.
Cephina also did likewise, pressing both palms together, but no rune appeared. Rather, a translucent purple-eyed black dragon (that possessed silver horns, huge black wings with red spikes at the edges, a long tail with golden spikes, and a golden underpart with horizontal red lines) materialised on her left and a pearl-white nine-tailed giant wolf also appeared on her right. Cephina’s hair turned purple, her eyes orange, and her lips blue, with a few purple scales visible on her arms.
The sorcerer simply sniggered after discerning he had more company. Opening his eyes which were now glowing gold, 8 more runes of various colours appeared- each one larger than the other- taking their various positions, and he even duplicated himself twice. While the copies couldn’t speak, they were half as good as him at fighting.
“Now what is your choice? Battle, or concede and calmly go to hell?” he asked, looking more conceited than before.
“You already know the answer, old thing,” Lavana’s mate responded as his eyes opened, revealing glowing sage green eyes, also duplicating himself thrice, the copies each having four runes like him.
“A scourge like you is better fit to perish,” Cephina said, stretching both hands forward. Both translucent creatures ran forward, excited to battle.
“Very well then,” With a signal to proceed, the masked sorcerer’s copies flew forward, making complex hand movements as they increased their pace.
The writings and symbols on the copies’ chosen rune lit up and commenced raining meteor-like attacks at the two creatures and the 2 copies that Phoenix had also sent forward.
Lavana’s mate’s copies disappeared and materialised just right behind the enemy copies, their selected runes also showering venomous spikes of varied colours.Text © 2024 NôvelDrama.Org.
One of the opponent copies turned around and flew towards the venom spikes-launching copies, its chosen rune raining lava balls at them instead, which the two skillfully evaded, taking any chance to launch venomous arrows at the rival copy.
The other replica belonging to the grinning old man went after the two translucent creatures, 2 of its runes showering ice spikes and hail, 3 rained rocks of various sizes and another rune was responsible for raining various translucent ancient weapons that caused a lot of headaches for the creatures.
Muttering some inaudible words, Cephina’s eyes turned purple, linking with the dragon. The creature opened its mouth spitting lightning bolts nonstop at the pesky copy itself, while the Olmpha used its tails to ward off as many of the attacks, not shrinking back even after by hit by a few attacks.
Below was a trembling Lavana whose lips had become pale and finding it rather challenging to retain her bearing, but she still held on. Unless that old bastard was taken down, she wouldn’t give up. There’s still a long way to go.
…
A great explosion occurred as the fighting parties clashed. One of the enemy copies had only 2 runes left after the clash, but the other one who was fighting the creatures had only 4 left. The opponent copies’ runes were dimming though. But one of Phoenix’s copies was gone along with the translucent Olmpha. The remaining copy of Phoenix’s had just one rune left and that was the golden rune that was dimming. The translucent dragon had its tail cut off and even lost its horns but it still roared, ready to attack.
“Hahaha! So weak,” the old man laughed wildly. He made the copies disappear as he felt he didn’t need them anymore. Doing hand movements at a speed that the human eye can’t comprehend, his ten runes changed shape and turned into ten different mythical creatures, one of them being a draconic-tailed cheetah, the writings and symbols still present on their bodies and glistening brighter than before.
Cephina made the translucent dragon vanish and then summoned another dragon and Olmpha creature that weren’t translucent this time.
Phoenix also made his duplicates disappear. The replicas are meant for testing how one would fare against an enemy sorcerer. He, from the battle just now, had comprehended that this man was more powerful than he envisioned, but he wasn’t just going to back down just because the opponent was seemingly invincible. That wasn’t like him!
“Antero Oswald, prepare to die,” he yelled, letting out a battle cry after his four runes also altered into different mythical creatures, the golden one above him being a dragon. He flew straight to the sorcerer, telepathically requesting Cephina to retreat.
The latter didn’t reply, but the two creatures she summoned vanished.
She began to sing in a language that neither of the two men understood but its effects showed up soon enough. While Phoenix’s felt a great surge in his powers as his body glowed a golden light, the other felt something wrong with his body.
“You… siren!” the dark sorcerer said through gritted teeth, vanishing before Phoenix could get to him.
He appeared right in front of Lavana.
“You stupid lass, better go to hell and stop annoying me,” he spat, launching dark mist at her, but a red magical barrier suddenly appeared around her, absorbing the attack.
Phoenix and Cepina turned around and found the opponent already before the tribrid, relentlessly launching attacks at the barrier that protected Lavana.
“Damn it,” Lavana’s mate cussed under his breath, also vanishing and appearing behind Lavana. He launched a grey mist at the old man who eluded it and reciprocated by launching a golden mist sphere at Lavana’s mate.
Cephina had ceased singing after noticing that the slick guy was attacking Phoenix. The barrier didn’t seem like it would hold on for much longer. She pitched multiple ice chains at him, one was successful in wrapping around his neck, tightening its grip, but it was too early to jubilate, as her ice chains instantly broke into fragments.
A bit dumbstruck, she didn’t lose her composure still, pitching another set of ice chains at him. Two caught his hands, wrapping around them, and she promptly pulled on the chains, preventing him from further trying to ruin the barrier or attack Phoenix
“You think I can’t harm him, uh?” Antero chortled as his eyes turned a mazarine blue, “You’re in for a surprise,”
Instantly, giant blue vines sprung up from the ground. Phoenix, on seeing this tried to flee, but the vines were faster. One of them caught his left foot and impaled its thorns into it.